Learn and secure a job through solving coding challenges

You may have visited an online website and landed on a page called Quora and met something indicated as a Geektastic’s coding challenges when searching for programming solutions and wondered what is a coding challenge; you may have heard it from somewhere else or maybe from a friend. You should not burry yourself in headaches as coding challenges are tests sent by willing employers to capable graduates or the interns who are searching for programming or coding jobs in various companies. The test serves as the first interview to get technical or coding signal on candidates.

Quora is an online platform where experts meet to share and gain knowledge, and if you come across the challenge at the platform, you can also try to test your coding abilities even if not for a job. Coding challenges come from phone calls and the onsite interviews but can also come later if the company requires more signal from the candidates.

Geektastic’s coding challenges are not created equal, but from my experience, I will describe the kind of challenges I handled when I was applying for a job in 2016. I started with an informational interview where I later completed all my challenges. The recruitment teams used to call me during the interviews period where they would inform me about the company and took me through the interview process. After that, I was briefed about the challenge itself and later received an email with a link directing me to the challenge on HackerRank and CoderByte where most of these challenges are usually hosted though companies sometimes prefer their tools.

You are usually given Y problems to solve within X minutes. My challenges ranged somewhere between half an hour to two hours with one to three problems to solve. The challenge will be specified, and you are not supposed to get any outside help. Most f these problems are usually coding problems relating to the typical software engineering and you are provided with a choice of programming language and the approach. After completing your challenges, you need to document all your without forgetting anything on your defense; you also need to critically criticise your and defend it aggressively as there is no one on the other as in a phone to listen to your arguments. Even if you don’t complete your work, documentation is very important as it can determine whether you will progress or not.

Make sure you answer the tests as well as possible and find solutions that solve the challenges. If you are not able to complete all of them, you have to make sure you solve at least two problems, and their solutions are working rather than performing all of them, and none of them is working. I used to be nervous about timed examinations but kept reminding myself that this was just an interview. Performing poorly does not eliminate you automatically, but you have to strive as I did not perform well on the third problem but I still progressed. After you complete your Geektastic’s coding challenges, you are required to submit them on the same platform where you picked them and wait for communication from the company within a week to be notified of the next step. So try your luck because you never know.

I hope I have answered you quite well as this question came from Quora, The online platform where you share and gain knowledge thus empowering people to learn and help each other and understanding our world.